


Portrait of Love

by uniquepov



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Holidays, Rare Pairing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-26
Updated: 2011-01-26
Packaged: 2017-11-05 06:26:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/403377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uniquepov/pseuds/uniquepov
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People think they’re polar opposites, but they know the truth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Portrait of Love

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://rarepair-shorts.livejournal.com/profile)[**rarepair_shorts**](http://rarepair-shorts.livejournal.com/) ' Winter Fic Exchange as a gift for [](http://martinius.livejournal.com/profile)[**martinius**](http://martinius.livejournal.com/), who asked for "Strong women. Happy ending, though they don't need to be sugar sweet. Humor."
> 
>  **Disclaimer:** I solemnly swear that I am up to no good. However, I promise to return everyone, good as new, when I'm done playing with them. I own nothing that you recognize, and I do not profit from any of it.  
> 

On first glance, Luna Lovegood and Hermione Granger seemed a very odd sort of couple, indeed.

In fact, they seemed to all the world to be polar opposites.

Luna was ethereal; with her silvery blonde hair, pale skin and beatific smile, she was light incarnate. She loved everyone and gave people every chance in the world to break her heart, blissfully sure that “they didn’t mean it like that,” or that it was “all good fun.” To most people, she seemed childlike and fragile, as though she wasn’t quite aware of her surroundings or, at least, as though she might have had a few bats in her attic. She’d made a modest name for herself, outside of her role in the war, as a poet, artist and author. People ignored her ramblings as mere flights of fancy, conveniently forgetting the touch of Seer which often made her startlingly correct.

Hermione, by contrast, was logic personified. The ‘brightest witch of her age,’ she was acutely aware of everything going on in the world and its social, ecological and financial ramifications. Her honey-brown curls and chocolate eyes were the earth to Luna’s sunshine. Somewhat guarded, and slow to love, but as fiercely loyal and Gryffindor-ish as she’d been at Hogwarts. The youngest Minister of Magic in history, she’d led wizarding Britain into a new era of tolerance, social justice and progress after Kingsley Shacklebolt’s “war recovery” programs.

Acquaintances often marveled at the contrast between them, but the women would simply smile enigmatically and say, “Well, you know what they say about opposites attracting.”

That was the response they’d agreed upon years ago, but those closest to them knew the truth.

And the truth was that the two weren’t opposites at all.

There were differences, to be sure; differences that complemented the other so perfectly, they truly seemed to be two halves of a whole.

Luna’s dreamy nature allowed Hermione to let go on occasion, preventing her from sinking into earnest seriousness. Without her, Hermione could have gone days without laughter, smiles or flights of fancy; bogged down as she was with affairs of state and social causes. Luna’s presence in her life gave her permission to stop being the female third of the Golden Trio, to stop being the strong-minded, vocal activist, to stop being the Minister of Magic… and to just be herself.

Hermione’s strength kept Luna from a tendency to lose herself in her stories and dreams. Her faith in people’s inherent goodness made her seem an easy target for predators, but she was surprisingly shrewd, often offering Hermione an unexpected insight into the personal agendas of the people they interacted with. A brilliant witch, like her mother before her; Luna had the same tendencies to experimentation and creative thinking. It was Hermione’s grounding influence that kept Luna rooted in reality, even if her head remained firmly in the clouds.

Luna and Hermione, Harry Potter and Neville Longbottom, Draco Malfoy and Ginny Weasley, her brother Ron and Pansy Parkinson… none were pairings that anyone would have predicted, but while the rest of the wizarding world shook their heads and marveled, the other survivors knew and understood the bond they shared.

The battle scars from a war whose remembrances had faded in the intervening decades. Not just the physical scars, although both women bore them, but the emotional and psychological scars which were not as easily seen or healed. The inevitable guilt which haunted all the survivors and which had caused those closest to the fray to pair up in unlikely combinations.

The shared experiences that outsiders could never truly share or understand. Their Hogwarts years, yes, but also the years of rebuilding which followed the Final Battle, the shared grief from their losses and a world that was slow to heal.

The forged steel of love that has seen too much loss, too young. The staunch determination that they will not lose another friend, family member or lover again, if there was anything in their power to prevent it.

They might look differently, act and even think differently, but at the core of their souls, they were the same.

A shared past.

A shared love.

A shared future.

A shared life.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Podficced!** Listen to 's lovely reading [here](http://fire-juggler.livejournal.com/85120.html)!


End file.
